I am a cat person. I am, however, increasingly appreciative of the many qualities that dogs bring to their human companions. In ‘Dogs’, Netflix’s new documentary series, we see six stories centered on how dogs and people change each other’s lives.
The first episode, ‘The Kid with the Dog’, focuses on service dogs who are trained to help children with disabilities. We meet Corrine, a girl who has life-threatening epilepsy, and Rory, the dog trained to alert others when she has seizures. This episode is a complex portrait of the burdens placed on families with special needs children. We see how Rory brings hope to this family as he takes on some of this burden.
The six stories in the series vary widely, from Japanese dog groomers at an American grooming competition to a refuge in Costa Rica that houses over a thousand abandoned dogs. Each episode shows the interdependence of people and dogs in different parts of the world. This documentary series is both touching and thought-provoking, for cat and dog people alike.
by Elana Kupor